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Class Action Suit: 62k Swift Drivers Shorted Pay By 7-10%

If you worked with for Swift in the past few years, you may be considered eligible to be part of a class action suit against them that includes more than 62,000 drivers. The suit was just approved by an Arizona Superior Court Judge following almost a decade of litigation that started back in 2004.

The lawsuit was broken up into two classes, drivers who were owner-operators contracted with Swift at any time after March 6th 2001, and drivers who were company drivers with Swift at any time after April 9th 2009. The classes both claim that Swift used the Household Mover’s Guide to pay drivers based on estimated mileage driven instead of paying them based on the actual number of miles driven.

According to the lawsuit, the difference between the actual number of miles driven and the estimated mileage could be anywhere between 7% and 10%. Leonard Aragon, the lead attorney on the case, claims that Swift still uses the same estimated mileage tactics to determine driver pay. “They have other mechanisms by which they could calculate actual miles driven, but they just don’t use those methods.”

If you believe that you qualify to be part of the class action suit, but have not received a letter, you should call 866-677-4812 or visit the website here. If you would like to opt out of the suit in order to be excluded or to sue Swift separately, you must make your decision known by September 13th, otherwise you will be automatically included in the class.

A judge thought otherwise and backpay may not be the only issue. Mileage databases omit miles within origin and destination zipcode boundaries and often represent shortest non-vehicle specific routes that trucks can’t legally or physically travel due to weight, dimension or clearance restrictions. Drivers are given this inappropriate information to use for trip planning and for tax and permitting estimations. Even though drivers may be told they are not being paid actual route miles any liabilty they incur due to these inaccuracies may be transferrable to the employer or ultimately to the database publishers.

Actual Miles driven is a luxury few, very few, drivers receive. I would tell management, going by there ‘Household measure’ was inaccurate as even to the point of ‘line of site’/direct measure of geo compass was inadequate some times and only worse when requirements to use routing through cities that had laws governing/restricting 18 Wheelers.
Based on this suits presumptions, I would be entitled to 50K$> for the million miles every seven years I drove.

I think most companies pay this way and its common knowledge that they do. Not sure why all of sudden they think they are entitled to more? I am all for paying actual mileage but its disclosed in your pay contract weather its household guide or something else. Great if they get it. All I can say is good luck.

I just wrote an article detailing the lost wages I’ve had each and every year. For me it amounts to over six thousand dollars a year.
What we need is a way to give our companies a DD 1099 form at the end of each year so we can write off these lost wages.

Give me a break! Now the company is supposed to pay for all of the out of route miles these idiots want to run? Whose fault is it the drivers/ contractors didnt find out what the calculation method was at the beginning?
Im no fan of hmg milages myself but thats what the rates are set from and thats how they are paid. Rand mcnalley practical miles are probably alittle closer nut youd still have some joker wantimg to get paid for going from chicago to detroit via el paso

I don’t think that they should be paid for out of route miles if there is no detour required for construction or accidents, but I do think a change in the way drivers are paid is necessary. After all, a lot of companies have GPS tracking of the trucks, so they know when a truck goes out of route, and with the myriad of computer resources to check traffic/construction, so they would also be able to check why the driver was out of route.

Quite a few years ago, some companies switched to what they called “Practical Route Miles”. It didn’t seem to be any better that I could determine, sometimes worse. If they’re going to promote anything, it’s going to put more money in their pocket, not necessarily the driver’s pocket. In most instances, they pay by the most direct route, but they want you to drive it by a longer “more practical” route, but that’s NOT how they pay it. I have to think some of them pay miles routed on gravel and dirt roads. One company I worked for said they paid an extra. 2 cents a mile for hazmat loads. Whoopee! But, noticed if I took the extra revenue supposedly made by 2 cents per mile, then divided that extra revenue by the base rate per mile, GUESS HOW MANY MILES THEY SHORTED ME! What a joke.

If you don’t see a difference with practical route miles, then they are just saying it. I worked for a company that paid PRM, and I saw a big difference. Sometimes, I was even paid for more miles than I drove.

I can agree with the routes planned on unpaved gravel roads. The dispatch tells u not to use a car gps becasue u could end up in a bad place. Well I went by the truck gps & guess where I ended up. With the trailer tandems hanging off a cliff & the landing gear stuck in the ground & the tractor ready to follow. The police laughed at me instead of helping comfort me. I was scared.

The GPS is TOOL to HELP you. It requires a functioning brain on your part as well as working eyes. YOU are quite obviously a FOOL, who goes blithely around with your head where the sun don’t shine and blames it on someone else when you get into trouble. I bet you voted for OBAMA too didn’t you?

all these big company’s do that. that’s one of the reasons why i refuse to lease to any of them. if you do your homework, there are company’s that will treat you fairly,and pay you by truck rout. not as the crow days. this is old news but with today technology,any company that still pays this should be forced to stop. i guess swift is the beings of it. perfect candidate.

Yeah, swift owes me quite a but of money for the 1.5 years I was contracted to them as an owner op, and the 4 months I drove as a company driver. I honestly think this is an important that we win this, as this could turn the tables for pay for the entire industry (unless your making percentage). Not only that, Swift needs to be taken down by any means necessary. Give they’re freight to companies or small business owner ops that deserve and can SAFELY run their freight, this of course excludes Fed Ex, as they’re drivers may actually be worse.

There are two sides to this mileage pay coin. I agree the HHG method is totally unrealistic. But the so-called “actual” miles is a relative concept also and can vary from driver to driver as to what it actually takes to get from point A to point B. Some have seizures with even the thought of going down a paved county road that is truck legal and will not route themselves that way. These roads will not even show up on a Rand McNally atlas the majority of the time, yet in some states, these county highways are as good or better than the state and Federal roads. Iowa is a classic example of this. Even the truck specific GPS gadgets will have a brain cramp when I go down some of these kinds or roads, even though I have been going down them for years, legally. My out of route averages, year over year, are in the 3% range on irregular route load running. These guys are claiming 7-10%. I see this litigation being drawn out and no one but the lawyers benefiting in any way.

Swift has mandatory routing! You get in trouble for going out of route. I was a driver for them in 2010-2011. There SOP is to rip of there drivers! Im still owed vacation pay, detention, and breakdown pay from 2011! I hope we win the suit and they have to pay up every cent!!! They make millions and rip off and there drivers? There shady and deserve what they get.

We are always fighting for them to pay the layover pay and detention pay. The load planners can’t do basic math on drivers hours. And they still insist on paying rookie wages to experienced drivers. They let people who are unclean, overweight, and unkept stay employed.

WHY do these PDB’s even work for them? is it to pay off their driving schools? A form of indentured servitude? WE need to get the word out about the community colleges that will help them get a CDL for less and wont lock them into shit jobs for shit pay. (PDB = Poor Dumb Bastard) I thought the word was out about these bottom feeders. Never had the desire to work for one of these mega- carriers. Been tanker yanking for 30+ years. Get treated better, drive better equipment, and make better money than the box haulers do. and yes I’m pulling Hazmat loaded one way.

Routing has an impact on Hours Of Service violations. I have had dispatchers say one warehouse is three miles away from the second one in the next city in Virginia. The truck has to go all the to the back of the town from the interstate in both cities, about thirty five miles through red lights. Their appointments are based on the computers’ quick miles and sit at their desks hoping the computer is right, refuse to listen to the driver and put late penalties on the DAC report.
FMCSA should look at the impact forced routing has on safety compliance.
Shippers should look at how routing can determine when the truck can physically be there

Actually there are companies that pay off of the actual mileage minus any out of route miles of course. Swift, CR England, Prime and several other companies bill the Shippers and Consignees actual miles yet pay their drivers a zip code to zip code estimsted mileage based pay.theygive the driver routing and knowingly less miles than they are billing customers. They expect drivers to be acceptant of this practise and for the most part a large majority of drivers are. After all the trucking industry as a.whole has been screwing over their own employees ( drivers) for zo long many have been conditioned to accept it. It does not make it right though. These companies abuse their drivers hours of servic, convienently forget to reimburse expenses untill called, short change a drivers miles and do not pay for the drivers on duty time in most cases. If a regular corporate business in the united states tried to not pay their employees on duty time there would be a crackdown from national labor associations. Personally I hope they lose their asses.

I was a company driver for 4 years and an owner op for a other 4 years total miles probably va million at six to nine percent about 80 to 90 thousand bucks.. ha ha I’ll take it… but I’m sure swift will file bk and come out smelling like a rose…

Also I think it really depends on how swift billed its customers. . Did the charge hub miles and pay hhg miles? Then they are totally BUSTED…Actually if they pay the 10 Percent to drivers I could get Closer to 100 thousand. .. Sweet!!! One can dream…

Truck drivers NEED to be paid BY THE HOUR! Until they are they will continue to be SLAVES, exploited by multimillionaire businessmen in suits and fancy houses sipping champagne while drivers do half their work for FREE every dang day.

Get paid all the miles you drive? NOPE
Get paid for inspecting the truck? NOPE
Get paid for small maintenance you do on the truck? NOPE
Get paid for backing up and getting into impossible tight docks? NOPE

WELCOME to the wonderful world of trucking…Drivers have been shorted on miles from day one..The company charges what the customer will pay(we dont want to lose a customer).The driver gets paid HHG miles(city limits to city limits)Very few companies pay percentage any more.I’ve worked on percentage and averaged better than mileage pay.You keep your deadhead down and stay away from cheap freight. When the boss makes money ,so do I.
Companies will ALWAYS report and pay on the shortest miles ( we cant pay to much in fuel taxes)

Call me nuts, but I think employees need to be payed for work performed if they’re on piece rate they should be payed for every piece. If they’re on hourly they should get payed for every hour they work. Owner ops on the other hand are contracting, if they accept the contract to go 1000 miles at 800 miles pay, well that’s their decision.

People most often value a thing based on what they pay for it….Just as long as you will work for free they will continue to use your free labor….

After all the only way that they can waste your time is not to use it…Look around ..Everyone else gets paid for all of the time that they put in and all of the work that they do..And they get overtime pay too..

Just as long as you give it away …They will take it…And charge the customer for what you give away too…If you want to work for free come by my place and I’ll always find something for you to do!..

Organize and stop working for free…Or just be happy with the crumbs that they throw you and stop complaining….Nobody else shows up for work at the appointed place and time and doesn’t get paid for it….Ditto for pre and post checks…What about tarping?…and Dock work?….Breaking down pallets??…Why pay a guy when you are there to do it for free???….How much work did you do for free this week???..As long as you will work for free …they won’t pay me or anyone else more !!!..

My beef with Swift was them calling me before my 10 hours of rest period was over. They could not tell me how to get to the Pick – up or the delivery location. Call the dispatch and they would say how would I know I haven’t been there. I had map books that would get me close but were lacking the acual street?

Unfortunately, we live in an age where deception is the key to success. Companies will tell you sometimes the miles will be longer and sometime shorter so it will be about even at the end. Not true, the companies always will short you 99% of the time. So this unfair and deceptive.

bunch of whiners who want everything handed to them. No one made you become a truck driver. You agreed to the pay conditions when you took the job. Trucking is a low profit margin whether you are a mega, an independant, small fleet owner or whatever. Isee the rates that are charged. The full rate. And when you take the cost of operation and paying the driver the owner of truck doesnt make all that much. Yeah the owner of Swift and other megas may be rich but thats because of the amount of trucks on the road. Break it down to profit for an individual truck and the profit margin might suprise you on how low it is